This blog features news and events associated with Asian Australian Studies. Asian Australian Studies is a growing field that investigates the diasporic cultures, politics and histories of those of Asian descent in Austalia.
All information is sourced from the AASRN (Asian Australian Studies Research Network) and its members. For more information about the AASRN, visit our website at: www.asianaustralianstudies.org

31 August 2007

Please go to the CAHS webpage at http://www.hermes.net.au/cahs/events.htm to access information and booking forms on the following exciting events organized by the CAHS for this year's History Week, 15 to 22 September.

On 15 September: the CAHS 5th Annual Lecture on Chinese Australian History and Heritage, the Society’s Annual Dinner, and the launch by the Hon. Henry Tsang of John Fitzgerald’s exciting new book, Big White Lie, which challenges the recent attempts to restore the reputation of the White Australia Policy. Proponents of a White Australia Policy argue that Chinese were excluded from Australia not because of their race but because Chinese habits, instincts and culture were incompatible with Australian values: mateship, democracy, and the “fair-go.” Professor Fitzgerald's book shows that the idea that Chinese did not, and do not, belong in Australia is our nation’s BIG WHITE LIE! Professor Fitzgerald will draw on his book and his other research for his Lecture titled: "Chinese-Australian Survival Strategies in the White Australia Era.Professor."

Professor Fitzgerald's book, Big White Lie, will be available for purchase at a special price after its launch on 15 September.

On 18 September, our venerable 85 year old “Uncle Arthur” will conduct a tour of the Dixon Street precinct and reflect on his memories of Chinatown places. Arthur Gar Lock Chang will be assisted by Theresa Cheng, and an optional yum cha lunch will follow the tour.

On 22 September the Society, in conjunction with the Powerhouse Museum, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Wong Sat in Australia. This event will be held at the Powerhouse.

These are official events of History Week supported by the History Council of NSW.

24 August 2007

12th International Metropolis ConferenceMigration, Social Cohesion and Economic Growth8-12 October 2007Melbourne, Australia

• Preliminary program now available• Register before 27 August 2007 to receive a reduced rate - Early Bird Registrations close soon

The 12th International Metropolis Conference will examine research, policy and practice in the areas of migration, diversity, social cohesion, and associated economic impacts. It will include 12 exciting plenary sessions, 80+ workshops and an engaging set of study tours. Given that this is the first International Metropolis Conference to be held in the Southern Hemisphere, special attention will be paid to the Asia-Pacific region.

migrations & identities is a new journal published bi-annually by Liverpool University Press.

The title represents a programme: We aim to interrogate notions of 'identity' while asking how the fact of mobility and displacement shapes understandings of self and the wider world, among both migrants and 'host' societies. By the same token, we seek to understand how ideas and concepts are transformed as they 'migrate' from one place and culture to another.

Multi- and interdisciplinary in both conception and management, migrations & identities aims to cover the widest possible range of places, periods and methods, subject only to a shared curiosity and enthusiasm about the possibilities of working at the interface between the investigation of the material conditions of migration processes and the study of ideas and subjectivities.

In particular, we hope that scholars working in many fields will find in migrations & identities a forum for discussion of the methods appropriate to a project of linking observable experience and mentalities in difference times and places, and that among the topics of discussion will be the real challenges involved in conversing across disciplinary boundaries.

We are now inviting proposals for contributions for the inaugural issue, to be published in the summer of 2008. We welcome both critical surveys considering how particular disciplines or fields of study have dealt with the relationship between migration and identity, and case studies which exemplify a self-conscious approach to the methodological issues it raises.

Your proposal should be for an article of 5-8,000 words, and should take the form of an abstract of no more than 300 words.

Please send abstracts to Mark Choonara at inmotion@liv.ac.uk no later than 15th September 2007.

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies (CCS) is an interdisciplinary research initiative at the University of Technology, Sydney. It investigates from multi-disciplinary perspectives the practices that lie between political institutions, economic relations and traditional social formations, which are crucial in enabling social cohesion and change in cosmopolitan societies.

Call for papersThis is the first Call for Papers for the 2007 UTS Conference on Cosmopolitan Civil Societies. Please send us an email with the:

Cosmopolitan Civil Society focuses on the nexus between cosmopolitan culture and civil society. Our starting point is that civil society can only be understood in its cultural particularity, in the ordinariness of everyday life. Accordingly, the CCS will develop insights within the plurality of cosmopolitan civil societies. The CCS will focus its work at the intersections of cultural conflict and social cohesion within cosmopolitan civil societies. Our interest is in seeing how divisions can be reconfigured to generate new forms of dialogue, recognition and inclusion and thereby promote cosmopolitan cohesion.

Due the success of the first WestXpress shortfilm and acoustic night held in early April, young filmmakers Rumble Pictures in collaboration with Fairfield's Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT) will be holding the youth event WestXpress 2 at the PYT School of Arts on Saturday the 8th September, 2007

Young talent is the driving force behind this amazing event, which will showcase young artists, musicians from all around Western Sydney.

Hosting a number a number of short films from local production groups such as 9 Lives, Trinity Productions and Komaticom. WestXpress 2 will premiere the break-up comedy More Than Words by local award-winning director, Timothy Ly.

Hear the music by acoustic duo sensation 'The Closet Romantics' and other musical acts.

Take a wander inside the gallery and see the works from creative young artists

The fourth issue of AEN Journal focuses on faith and interfaith issues. It brings together a range of writers to provide debate and critical comment on the role of faith in developing civil society. New Zealand 's ethnic and religious diversity has increased dramatically over recent years. Growing interest in cultural diversity needs to be matched with discussions about religious diversity if stressors caused by religious and ethnic differences evident overseas are to be successfully avoided or negotiated. Whilst religious participation by Pakeha New Zealanders has been steadily declining, changes to immigration policy have resulted in the growth of both diasporic religious traditions (such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and so on) and the invigoration of Christian denominations. Faith-community organisations are seen by many as a tremendous resource of energy and commitment playing an important part in the development of civil society. Trusted religious or ethnic community organisations are often a key gateway for new New Zealanders to relate to their wider community.

We cordially invite submissions to the conference of the International Symposium on Electronic Art 2008 that will be held in Singapore between 25th-30th July 2008.

The conference is held alongside workshops, courses, exhibitions, performances and other in-conjunction events that will be held for the duration of ISEA2008 from 25th July to August 3rd 2008.

The conference, as in previous ISEAs, is expected to bring together artists, theorists, historians, curators and researchers of media arts from around the world to jointly explore the most urgent and exciting questions in the field. The five themes of ISEA2008 are especially focused on eliciting a wide range of international scholars and artists.

Conference Programme The conference programme will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed individual papers and panel presentations. This year we are also encouraging artists who wish to share their works with a broader audience of their peers to submit artist presentations where they can speak about the specific aesthetic, conceptual and technological aspects of their works. The conference also promises to present a list of internationally renowned Keynote Speakers expounding on the major themes of the conference. There will also be a special lecture delivered by a Nobel Laureate.

Call for Proposals We welcome contributions from creative practitioners and researchers from a variety of disciplines and institutional contexts as media arts benefits from and exemplifies the interdisciplinary linkages between contemporary art, science, technology and their related philosophies, pedagogies and institutional practices.

The submissions must address or be of relevance to at least one of the themes of ISEA2008 in order to be considered for inclusion in the conference.

The conference will be of interest to those working in but not limited to the following areas: media art, contemporary art, design, art history and theory, film and media studies, gaming, toy design, human-computer interaction, cultural studies, literary studies, musicology, sound studies, theatre, dance and performance studies, science, technology and society studies, history of science and history of technology, philosophy, history, gender studies, political science, anthropology, sociology and geography.

Submission requirements: We only require abstracts (not more than 300 words) of the proposed paper, panel presentations and artist presentations to be submitted in either Text, RTF, Word or PDF formats via our site. Please do not submit full papers at this stage. While we encourage submissions to include relevant images, it would be useful if the formats in which such images are submitted is restricted to low resolution jpegs.

In the case of submissions for artists’ presentations, artists are encouraged to provide links to their and/or relevant websites. The deadline for submissions will be 31st August 2007. Submissions sent after this date will not be considered.

17 August 2007

The meaning of life may be a Monty Python movie, 42 and what else? Be profound, cynical, spiritual, scientific, humorous... or even all these at once!

We want your take on the meaning of life for you.

We accept submissions of any kind of text, sound or visual art, as long as it can be presented online (e.g. essays, reflections, poetry, fiction, memoir, spoken word tracks, photos, etc.). Text limit is 1000 words preferably submitted in txt form .

The due date is September 30 2007 to be published on line in November 2007.

Currently, I, Ouyang Yu, as professor of Australian literature in theEnglish Department, Wuhan University, the People's Republic of China, amworking on a project in Chinese, titled, A History of Literary Exchangebetween China and Australia and A History of Literary Exchange betweenChina and New Zealand (two volumes in one single book). This project iscommissioned by Nanjing University and a contract has been signed forits publication in late 2008.

For the Australian section, I have involved a number of scholars to workon the project although I still need a few more to work on variouschapters, such as Australian literature in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.Equally, I would like to invite Chinese scholars with expertise relevantto New Zealand literature in China and Chinese literature in New Zealandto work on the NZ section. Each contributor will have their nameattached to the chapter they write and be paid in Chinese RMB but aseditor-in-chief I will be responsible for the whole book apart fromtaking part in writing part of it.

Please note that this book is to be written in Chinese. If you areinterested in participating in the project, please email me your CV anda list of publications in Chinese. Joint authors are welcome (e.g., oneChinese paired up with one Aussie or Kiwi).

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR MASTERS AND PHD STUDY IN WOMEN'S STUDIESScholarships are available for candidates commencing Masters by research and PhD study in Women's Studies at Monash University in 2008.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE? Candidates must hold a first class honours in their Bachelors degree (or equivalent e.g. Masters level qualification with a significant thesis component graded at first class honours) to be eligible to apply for a scholarship. International candidates for whom English is a second language must also submit a recent IELTS score.

WHEN DO APPLICATIONS CLOSE?Applications for the 2008 university scholarship round close on 31 OCTOBER 2007. Late applications will not be accepted.

WHEN ARE RESULTS ANNOUNCED?Successful applicants will be notified in early December 2007 and should normally commence their scholarships between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2008 (in special circumstances, start dates up to 30 June 2008 can be negotiated).

HOW CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CENTRE'S PROGRAMS AND STAFF?You can check out the following website: www.arts.monash.edu.au/ws

HOW DO I APPLY?Scholarship forms and pre-application forms are now available and can be obtained by contacting Sue Stevenson (sue.stevenson@arts.monash.edu.au), the Graduate Administrator of the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.

Following the successful Rediscovered Past: China in northern Queensland conference held in Cairns in 2006, the organisers are pleased to announce a second conference, the sequel, to be held in 2008. Again this will be a “no fuss” multidisciplinary event run over two days and will be open to contributions from all fields of Chinese Australian studies – including history, archaeology, heritage management, law, literature, linguistics, art, and library science. The conference will maintain the previous casual, convivial atmosphere that everybody enjoyed, as well as the theme, focussing on Chinese interrelationships with other ethnic groups as well as with other diasporic Chinese, and the diverse nature of Chinese settlement and life. However, as the title indicates, the regional emphasis has been broadened beyond Queensland to include other parts of northern Australia. Chinese have made contact with this region for several centuries, starting with sporadic visits by traders and fishermen and culminating in the large scale immigration of miners, workers and business people during the 19th century. Indeed, there has been a long history of multiculturalism (which includes other peoples from the Asia Pacific region) and this, combined with the vast landscapes, tropical climate, and remote frontier conditions, created in Northern Australia a dynamic social environment that was in many ways unique. It is this special character and social complexity that presenters are particularly encouraged to explore.

In November this year, Murdoch University and partners are hosting a National Conference on Racism in a Global Context. Following on from the United Nations World Conference against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban South Africa, this unique three day conference will bring together a range of internationally respected academics and researchers, local and national government representatives, NGOs, Indigenous leaders, and groups and individuals from the community to review the themes and issues raised at WCAR, and to explore experiences and effects of racism. In line with the goals of the Durban conference, participants will work together to develop practical solutions for the community, organisations, and government to advance the fight against racism in Australia and promote positive racial and cultural relations.

The conference aims to inform and encourage broad thought and debate about racism and discrimination, and to spark positive action. To ensure community engagement, community-targeted initiatives will run in conjunction with the academic conference. One of the key initiatives is a film festival that will screen movies with topics relevant to the conference's themes . The centrepiece will be a screening of Liyarn Ngarn, a new feature length documentary produced by Steve Hawke, directed by award winning director Martin Mhando, and starring Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite, respected Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson, and renowned balladeer Archie Roach. The film festival will be open to the public, and timed to complement the conference program.

The ARC Cultural Research Network has again announced a $10,000 bursary (The ARC Cultural Research Network Awards), this time to support the presence of postgraduate students enrolled in Australian universities at the CSAA 2007 annual conference. The awards cover CSAA conference registration, airfare, accommodation and a per diem, and will be granted to the best postgraduate abstracts.

Six awards will be granted in 2007.

If you have completed a PhD and are without full-time work, you may also apply).

The theme for this year's conference is Sustaining Culture. Here is the Call for Papers (MS-Word document). The deadline has been extended to accommodate those who may wish to take advantage of this bursary.

To register your interest in consideration for the ARC Cultural Research Network Award, please email Jon Dale by 15 September 2007 at: jonathon.dale@unisa.edu.au, ensuring the subject heading is ‘ARC Cultural Research Network Awards’.

8 August 2007

The Multi-Faith Centre and all co-sponsoring organizations cordially invite you to a Celebration of the UNESCO-declared International Year of Rumi in 2007 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Rumi’s birth.

August 21st, 7:15 – 9:30 p.m.

Multi-Faith Centre, GriffithUniversity, Nathan campus

The renowned 13th century Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi has inspired countless peoples across diverse cultures and faiths to build a peaceful world based on mutual respect, understanding and harmony.

5-8 October 2007Three days and nights of music and dance workshopsBellydance, cabaret and and Balkan dance partiesWith some of Australia's top teachers and performersIn the beautiful Numinbah Valley, South East Qld.

This conference brings together and honours two of the foremost feminist literary scholars in the United States and Australia: Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Susan Sheridan. Both have investigated the gravity of history and possible strategies through which the cultural agency of women writers might be made manifest against and within regimes of social power. For Rachel Blau DuPlessis, this necessitates a writing and reading otherhow. For Susan Sheridan, it means exploring the faultlines of how writers might simultaneously work within and against conventions. Their work investigates strategies by which feminist critics might better consider the affiliations and intersections, as well as the disjunctions and differences between women cultural producers, especially writers. The impetus toward cultural change that informed the women’s movement also remains central to their thinking. This conference seeks to provide a forum in which genealogies of literary feminism, locally, nationally, and globally, might be articulated. It seeks to attract papers that focus on innovative feminist practice in literature and its criticism. We particularly invite papers that focus on the Australian context or on transnational literary and theoretical exchange.

The 6th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities will be held from January 11 (Friday) to January 14 (Monday), 2008 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, and the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. Cross-disciplinary submissions with other fields are welcome.

Multi-ethnicity is subject to a heavily contested debate. Its importance for society is huge: first, because it developed considerably in the Western countries in only a few decades; second, because its emergence involves - beyond an increased ability for cross-cultural communication - the transformation of crucial ancestral dimensions, such as culture, biology, family relationships, and relation to ancestors, as well as concepts of sexuality and death, and belonging to a nation or community. These transformations may have considerable impact on social behavior in a wide range of contexts, including economic life and political democracy. All these transformations are far from being an "easy process", contrary to what political leadership may suggest.

This conference will bring together social scientists, economists, policymakers, social workers and the widest spectrum of the involved players to explore the issues arising in an increasingly multiethnic society. The objective is to make progress on the understanding of these issues, by shedding light on some current developments and drafting innovative, practical responses.

1 August 2007

We have extended the Call for Papers until 5 September 2007 for the Second International Conference on Racisms in the New World Order.

The themes of the 2007 conference will provide an opportunity for participants to engage with some of the challenging and fundamental questions about racisms in contemporary society. This engagement will be through the various lenses that different participants bring to the conference - for example, as researchers, policy makers, advocates and individuals who experience racism. The following themes have been established as a framework for potential conference attendees to develop conference papers. The themes will also assist in ensuring that the conference is meaningful to practice, balanced in program content and relevant to a diverse audience.

Manifestations of racism

Responses to racism - current practice of what works and what does not